No One's There
by Vitani Le
Summary: Maximillion Pegasus visits his wife, Cecelia, in the hospital, during the final moments before she dies.


It feels like an eternity, that which I've remained here. I understand now why this abysmal place is known as the "waiting room." For as unknown physicians prod and poke at my dear newlywed wife, hoping to form a diagnosis as to this horrid disease which has struck her, I must remain in this miserable chair. Am I not even allowed to comfort my darling at this time of potential dire consequence?  
  
"Mr. Pegasus, will you please follow me, sir?" The doctor appears, in his stark coat and thick-rimmed spectacles, lenses that masked his expression like the burka worn by an Arabian woman. Does he deliberately shield his emotion from me? I abandon my seat in pursuit of the answers which he holds.  
  
He leads me through a labyrinth of passages. These doors are so foreboding, with their stainless steel exteriors, and completely sound-proof walls; which of these hides my Cecelia? Cecelia, do you call for me now? I need to hold you, to touch your face and be assured of your good health. I need you, but I am lost in a sea of iron walls...  
  
"Here we are, Mr. Pegasus, sir." As his skeletal hands pry open the door marked 'ICU,' I secretly wish for some way to understand this silent specialist's emotions. I want to understand his stiff frozen steps, I want to gaze into his thoughts and read the truth... But I have nothing enabling me to do so. I must wait for the answer to my quest, for this gate to open.  
  
I behold my darling. She lies on a bed of thin sheets and countless contraptions, as wiry threads twist their way through her prim nose, her pale arms, her delicate hands. She's trapped, held like a mouse in a cage, inside this horrible bondage that attempts to strip away her wonderful outer beauty. They have done to her what ravaging cancer already began.  
  
"Cecelia! What have you done to my Cecelia?!" Abandoning all pretense of appearing formal to the staff, I soar on weightless feet to my beloved's side. So many horrific wires, emitting the constant, never-ceasing pulse of useless information to the computer that tracks the life left in my wife. I cannot bear to see her contained in such a way. My hand weaves its way past the wirework to find that which I held on the day of my wedding, her beautiful, smooth palm.  
  
"Mr. Pegasus, please, you must listen to us," insists the doctor. Now he speaks... His tone, I cannot bear to hear it. His voice, that which I fear more than any other... Almighty Lord in heaven, I beg of you, let him say those words I need to hear... Let him tell me my wife will soon be healed!  
  
"I... I don't know how to tell this to you, sir..." His voice has begun to shake, to wobble on the fragile hospital air we breathe. I cannot steady the words this air brings to me, nor can I steady the hand that rests upon my frail wife. "...But we've tried every treatment available to us. None have worked successfully on Mrs. Pegasus."  
  
"Doctor, I will not hear this!" The blood that pounds through my ears carries me to the wretched physician. "Do you not understand my situation? I will pay for any surgery, any treatment you can offer. You know I have the money... Here, a billion dollars! I'll write the check out to you right now, for any treatment. Do you understand this?! Any treatment at all! The best surgeons and the best procedures available in this country, I will have them, and I will not stop until I -"  
  
"Mr. Pegasus!" His hands fly towards the ceiling. "We have. All treatments possible. All of them." He begins to list remedy upon remedy, of every therapy my poor Cecelia was subjected to. But my mind caught none of them. They blew past me, like the breeze of a midsummer afternoon, gone in only a moment's time, and useless. "...No treatment has been affective. Your wife... Mrs. Pegasus..."  
  
"...Cecelia..."  
  
"...Her energy fades. She won't last more than a few hours. Perhaps... not that long. There's nothing we can do." He backs away from me, proceeding toward the door, making absolutely certain his eyes do not meet mine. "You can have those few hours with her... It's all we can offer." He glances in my direction once more. "Good day, sir."  
  
"...Cecelia..." The door is shut. I find myself left alone. The doctor, he whom my best faith had been placed in, for the last few weeks of this non- prevailing treatment, has deserted me and my wife. Surely, he is lying. I'm certain there is a cure... a remedy... There just has to be. She can stay alive. I'll find it...  
  
I find that my knees have suddenly lost their strength. I plummet towards the floor, until with a firm thud, I am sprawled across the bitter stone tile. "Therapy... remedies... there is a cure! My baby will have it. My baby... Darling. Chemotherapy? But it can take months to heal. Time. I won't lose it all! A way, there will be a way... Such a damned doctor, he abandons my lovely! He knows nothing. There will be a way... There just has to be..."  
  
"Maximillion." A melody, like the solo of an angel, it flows through this dismal room, calling my name... It is my Cecelia. She has awoken!  
  
I rush to the side of my beautiful lady. Oh, how could any experienced physician have refused to give aid to such an Aphrodite? "Cecelia, my lovely," I whisper to her, "I have faith..."  
  
"Oh, my dear Maximillion." Eyes like spheres of milky blue pearl climb through the maze to meet me, but fell from their grip at my words of belief. "You cannot be blinded by false hope, my husband... The doctor, he understands. He understands more about this than you."  
  
"No! No, he doesn't, Cecelia, he doesn't!" I shake my head, and locks of silvery hair follow me in the wave of disbelief. "He'll never know. He'll just follow the rules of the disc of probability, he gives no thought to the well-being of my beloved! Don't you see, Cecelia? He's wrong! Such a damn physician, he's worth nothing, he's wrong!"  
  
"You are blinded." She, the essence of reason, sanity, and well-being, she rests her hand upon mine and throws all her hopes away. "I don't have long, Maximillion... Can I spend these last few minutes without any argument from you?" The brilliant suns that are her eyes sparkle in the distant cosmos of her ashen face. "Breathe onto me... Let me know that which I am losing."  
  
"You'll never... never lose me." My hands clench around hers. Too tightly, and her pain echoes through me like the sound of a tree branch cracking and falling in the distance. I feel her anguish.  
  
"Forgive me..."  
  
"You never learn when the proper time to give up is, my dearest." Her voice now becomes the echoing branch. "Just as you never learned patience."  
  
Does her mouth fight the lag of disease, and flash me the smile she always presented to me as she pointed out my indefinite weaknesses? Yes, she does. She can still smile. She always was stronger than me.  
  
"Can.. can you hear me?" A scratch, I can hear it; a scratch has begun to manifest itself in her wonderful voice. Does it crawl its way up form her stomach to her throat, does it steal yet another part of my vanishing other half?  
  
"Yes, my dear, I hear you perfectly."  
  
Her eyes are no longer hers; instead, she is a deer that has wandered its way onto the highway, and found itself staring down the headlights of an oncoming monstrous machine. "I don't have long..." It is she that clenches these hands and draws the agony out further. "Don't let go, love... Don't let go of me!"  
  
"Never... I would never let go of you..." The truck is driving faster towards us both... Its light is blinding... Don't go toward the light, Cecelia, don't go!  
  
The frightened little fawn turns to me. "We... we never had the chance to have a child... Did I tell you? I always wanted a daughter... She would have been beautiful, wouldn't she?"  
  
Why? Oh God, why must you bring these tears forth to me now? "She would... she would have shown with the light of a goddess."  
  
Oh, how is it she can reveal my deepest desires like her own? Does she know the magnitude of which I always yearned for a daughter?...  
  
"I'll always love you," she rasps, as her voice slowly slips away from her. "I'll watch you... watch from the heavens. I'll wait for you. Wait for me..."  
  
"No, I cannot!" Her eyes fade from me, cast toward the ceiling in her sadness. "I will find you, my darling. I swear, there will be a way... Any possible way to bring you forth from the grave, I will scourge the earth... We'll be together, my darling..."  
  
"Maximillion... No..."  
  
Can my voice not hold steady, for these few remaining moments? "We'll be together! I love you with all my heart... We'll be together again on this earth! We... we will! Please, listen to me! Your eyes, they roam away from me... Don't disagree, believe me! Hear me!"  
  
There is no response. "Please... Oh God, don't leave me now... Cecelia, I'll bring you back... I'll give you life again. No, don't look away... Cecelia, what are you-"  
  
She shrieks. "MAXIMILLION!"  
  
No, please, silence the agony! Her voice triggers an onslaught of sounds, pulses, all whirling through my brain... Red and green and even more red, I cannot see anything anymore. The blood speeds through me. Through us. Her pulse rages against the violent storm. Calm us down, please, calm us down...  
  
And so everything fades, as quickly as it came. As soon as my eyes regain their vision, I turn again to my bride. Through the now silent vines of so- called medicine, I behold her supple body, and the golden hair that spreads like ocean waves around her pillow, and I still hold the cold, softened hands that once belonged to her. The body lies there, still so beautiful, as my beloved always was, but now, the eyes that held the ocean transformed into icy glass.  
  
No one's there. 


End file.
